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Azerbaijan political prisoners list published with report’s authors on it

London — Human rights activists in Azerbaijan published yesterday a list of 98 people who are currently political prisoners in the country run by the authoritarian regime of Ilham Aliyev. Ironically, the list includes the names of two of its authors, prominent rights activists Rasul Jafarov and Leyla Yunus, who were arrested under false charges earlier this month while they were working on the report.

Rasul and Leyla’s arrests are some of the latest in a new wave of systematic repression by the Azerbaijani regime that has seen four prominent activists arrested in the space of the last two weeks.

In the most recent incident, veteran activist and lawyer Intigam Aliyev was detained in the Azeri capital last Friday, and charged with tax evasion, abuse of office and illegal entrepreneurship. His name is now the latest entry on the political prisoners list.

Leyla Yunus, one of the Azerbaijan regime’s fiercest critics, was detained at the beginning of August alongside her husband Arif Yunus, on accusations of treason, spying for Armenia and illegal business activities, which could land them in prison for life.

Lawyer Khalid Bagirov, who is acting on behalf of all four activists, has said the arrests are politically motivated, and that their acquittal is “impossible”. There is concern for Arif and Leyla Yunus, who both have long-running health problems, which require specific medication and foods. This is not being provided in prison.

The recent arrest and the launch of the political prisoners list are taking place just ahead of next month’s 20th anniversary of the signing of the so-called contract of the century between Azerbaijan, BP and ten other international oil companies. Since that signing repression in Azerbaijan has steadily increased.

Azerbaijan is a gas rich country which makes it a favourite destination for many EU leaders in recent years. Among them where David Cameron (UK prime minister), Mark Rutte (Netherlands’ Prime Minister), Jose Manuel Barrosso (EC president) and Suma Chakhrabati (EBRD President). And just one month ago Aliyev paid an official visit to Italy which currently holds the EU presidency.

While the EU already reacted to Jafarov’s arrest calling on the Azeri authorities to respect the rights of civil society organisations, repeated human rights violations hasn’t prevented it from maintaining a close relationship with Aliyev’s regime. The arrests have paradoxically intensified in a period when Azerbaijan is holding rotating the presidency of the Council of Europe.

In a move to decrease its dependence on Russian gas, the EU and many of its member states are preparing the construction of a pipeline that has to bring Azeri gas via Turkey to the EU, the so called Euro-Caspian mega pipeline or the Southern Corridor. It is also expected to receive massive EU funding from the commission, member states development banks and private companies.

In June 2014, before his arrest, Rasul Jafarov commented “Before the oil and gas incomes came to Azerbaijan we had more democracy and freedom. From then on the situation started to deteriorate. We have problems with journalists being arrested, political prisoners, religious believers -if you criticise the government you can be easily interrogated and prosecuted under fabricated charges.”

Emma Hughes, from Platform London, who has been tracking the impact of oil and gas in Azerbaijan since 1998, said: “As the 20th anniversary of the contract of the century approaches the human rights situation in Azerbaijan couldn’t be worse. The time has come for BP to say enough: they have to withdraw any financing for the Aliyev regime and join the international call for the release of political prisoners in Azerbaijan.”

Notes for the editors:

(1) See the list of political prisoners in Azerbaijan:
https://bankwatch.org/documents/politicalprisoners-AZ.pdf

(2) Read a blog post by UK NGO Platform on the arrest of rights activist Rasul Jafarov:
http://platformlondon.org/2014/08/06/human-rights-activist-and-platform-ally-rasul-jafarov-arrested-in-azerbaijan/

(3) Read more about the Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline:
http://platformlondon.org/p-publications/europes-gas-grab-the-euro-caspian-mega-pipeline/

(4) Rasul and Yunus also campaigned against the 1st Europen Olympic Games that will be hosted by Azerbaijan in 2015 and which are a major PR coup for Ilham Aliyev’s repressive regime. More in this Platform blog post:
http://platformlondon.org/2014/07/10/all-that-glitters-azerbaijan-and-the-olympics/

(5) Earlier this month it was announced that Blair will advice the consortium behind TAP, the last part of the pipeline which runs from the Balkans to Italy.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/28b699ae-0d9f-11e4-815f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz39ccwNNod

For more information please contact

Emma Hughes
emma@platformlondon.org
+44 780 114 01 92

–

Image source: Platform London

EBRD in Serbia: Don’t use floods to prop up coal


The EBRD should stick to its newly approved Energy Strategy and reject any investments in the Serbian coal sector, argue a group of 7 international NGOs [*] in a letter sent to the bank’s board of directors today. The groups were concerned with recent statements by the EBRD according to which the bank’s regional flood response in the Balkans could include “rehabilitation of (…) damaged power stations and transmission and distribution networks.”

Read the letter sent by NGOs to the EBRD here:

https://bankwatch.org/sites/default/files/letter-EBRD-RSfloods-coal07Jul2014.pdf

The tragic floods hitting Serbia in May had a serious impact on the country’s highly centralised energy system: the Kolubara mines, the biggest in Serbia and feeding power plants which produce about half the electricity used in the country, were all inundated. The country’s coal production was roughly halved soon after the floods, with the government being forced to resort to imports.

“The energy crisis that looms large today in Serbia has its roots in the faulty structuring of the energy system,” writes the NGO letter. “The highly centralized power sector is excessively reliant on electricity production by coal-burning plants that were built before 1990 and are supplied with lignite from local mines.” According to the document, debates in Serbia around a new energy strategy for the country to be valid 2015-2025 make it clear that the government plans to continue giving a central role to coal.

„It is possible that the government of Serbia, like others in the region, may have requested for EBRD financial help with reopening mines or rehabilitating coal plants,” says Bankwatch’s EBRD coordinator Findaka Bacheva-McGrath. „Yet the EBRD should have learnt by now that the perpetual crisis of the energy sector in Serbia is caused by overreliance on coal and hyper-centralisation which can no longer be justified with post-war and post-flood excuses.”

„If the EBRD really wants to help Serbia, it cannot keep contributing to keeping us prisoners of coal,” says Zvezdan Kalmar of Serbian NGO CEKOR. „Instead, the EBRD could give more support for energy efficiency measures in housing, where the potential for savings is huge, and invest in alternatives to fossil fuels. 20 to 30 percent of our energy needs could be met from biomass in no more than five years if proper investments were made.”

In their letter, the NGOs draw particular attention to communities living in the vicinity of the coal mines at Kolubara. In the village of Vreoci for instance, near the Kolubara Field D where mining has been intensified to make up for other mines not being used, people who have been asking for years to be relocated because they live too close to the mines are more worried than ever. Not only has potentially toxic mining waste has been brought by the floods in their villages but they also fear the impacts of intensified mining on their crumbling houses.

„The EBRD always claims that Serbian state company EPS is in charge of resettlements of people, but for so many years they have not bothered with the rights of people living close to the mines,” says Kalmar. „If the EBRD want to provide Serbia with humanitarian assistance, the best way to start is to create a fund for facilitating the resettlement of communities impacted by the Kolubara mines.”

Read the letter sent by NGOs to the EBRD here:

https://bankwatch.org/sites/default/files/letter-EBRD-RSfloods-coal07Jul2014.pdf


* CEE Bankwatch Network, CEKOR Serbia, Center for Environment Bosnia and Herzegovina, SEE ChangeNet, Sierra Club US, Both Ends Netherlands, 350.org

For more information, contact:

Ioana Ciuta, CEE Bankwatch Network energy coordinator
ioana.ciuta@bankwatch.org
Tel.: +40 724 020 281

Zvezdan Kalmar, CEKOR Serbia
zvezdan@bankwatch.org
Tel.: +38 816 055 231 91

Massive EU infrastructure priority projects lack mandatory environmental assessment

EU heads of state gathering today and tomorrow will discuss the European Energy Security Strategy promoting a number of massive infrastructure projects which include gas pipelines, LNG terminals and storage facilities even though their overall environmental impact has not been adequately assessed. Environmentalists are currently battling the European Commission over this issue in Court.

The European Council is expected to give its green light to the European Commission for further work on defining the key security of supply infrastructure projects. However, a mandatory Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is lacking for the entire the PCI list. [1] The list consists of 248 different projects across Europe where the key security of supply projects have been selected from.
The decision of the EU Council will have far-reaching consequences as those projects and thus their promoters will benefit from preferential access to the EU backed sources of financing such as loans from the European Investment Bank and EU grants of the Connecting Europe Facility.

Additionally, as of the 1st of July the Commission encourages member states to provide state aid to these projects. [2] This would allow non-economical projects to benefit from national level state aid to cover up to 100% of the funding gap, next to EUR 5.85 billion already allocated from the EU budget.

Earlier this year the NGO Justice and Environment has taken the European Commission to court for not properly involving civil society in the selection process of priority energy projects and not assessing their full impact on environment. [3] The case is still ongoing.

“EU governments should request a more thorough analysis from the Commission – including a proper stakeholder dialogue – of the environmental and climate impacts of the energy infrastructure before they decide on granting them a special status”, commented Birgit Schmidhuber from Justice and Environment.

One of the projects that could profit from a Council decision is Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (TAP) bringing Azeri Gas to Italy. “The result will be that communities who live along the track of the pipeline are totally excluded from the process while they will be the first victims of the environmental impact of this project”, says Elena Gerebizza from Re:Common in Italy.

Counter Balance and CEE Bankwatch Network have been warning about the danger of overreliance on gas in shaping the EU’s energy future. [4] “More gas infrastructure is not only unnecessary according to the European Commission’s own projection but also undermines decarbonisation objectives we cannot sacrifice on the altar of free market theory,” says Kuba Gogolewski from CEE Bankwatch Network. [5]

For more information contact:

Kuba Gogolewski
Email: kuba.gogolewski@bankwatch.org
Mobile: +32 484 508 416

Birgit Schmidhuber
Email: birgit.schmidhuber@oekobuero.at

Notes

[1] http://www.unece.org/env/eia/about/sea_text.html
[2] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-673_en.htm
[3] http://www.justiceandenvironment.org/_files/file/2014/Press%20Release%201%20of%202014%20PCI%20court%20case_final.pdf
[4] http://www.counter-balance.org/no-more-gas/
[5] http://www.counter-balance.org/new-mega-gas-pipelines-redundant-according-to-the-eus-own-projections/

New mega gas pipelines redundant according to EU’s own projections


Brussels, June 12, 2014 – The EU’s plans for large new gas import pipelines and LNG terminals to Europe, outlined in the European Commission’s October 2013 list of priority energy projects as well as in the May blueprint for energy security to be discussed during tomorrow’s Energy Council (1), are not only counter to the EU’s long-term climate goals but also unjustified according to the EC’s own demand forecast.

Projects aimed at increasing EU gas imports, included in the European Commission’s Projects of Common Interest (PCI) would surpass the five scenarios of the EC’s own Energy Roadmap 2050 which all foresee an overall decrease in gas imports. Additionally, they would support authoritarian regimes which repeatedly violate human rights and limit space for democratic expression, according to an analysis by NGOs Platform, Re:Common and CEE Bankwatch Network launched today. (2)

The inclusion of such projects on the EU’s PCI list makes it likely they will receive priority funding from public support via the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility or instruments like Europe 2020 Project Bonds.

Out of the 248 projects on the Commission’s PCI list, more than 100 are for natural gas transmission, storage and LNG and at least 15 are aimed at increasing EU gas imports. The biggest and most problematic among them are the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), part of the Southern Corridor – or Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline as it is popularly known – which are meant to bring to the EU gas from the Caspian region via Turkey.

If constructed, the gas projects – including TAP and TANAP – will have high financial, human rights and environmental costs, say the groups.

“Much of the EU’s existing gas import infrastructure is under-used, and according to the EC’s demand forecasts in the Energy Roadmap 2050, there is more than enough current infrastructure to cover imports during the next few decades, even taking into account the expected production decline in Norway”, explains Kuba Gogolewski of CEE Bankwatch Network.

“Of course the idea is to reduce dependence on Russia, and there are cases where investments may be justified to better distribute gas within the EU. But building huge new import pipelines and new LNG terminals on the scale planned will perpetuate the EU’s dependence on imported fossil fuels”, he adds.

“The Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline would lock the EU into dependence on gas from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and increase social conflict in the region, providing a huge boost for the repressive Aliyev and Berdimuhamedow regimes who are pocketing the revenues”, says Emma Hughes of Platform. “There is little point in lessening dependence on Russia only to replace it with these unpredictable dictatorships”.

A further concern is represented by public financing for the gas projects. While presented as private sector projects, some of them are already being envisaged to benefit from public support via the European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility or instruments like Europe 2020 Project Bonds.

“It is almost impossible to build such large-scale infrastructure without the public ultimately taking on most of the risks, and we should not pretend otherwise”, said Elena Gerebizza of Re:Common. “The use of ‘innovative’ financial mechanisms like the Project Bonds only means that public institutions and funds are used to favour private investors’ profits leaving European citizens to bear the risks. What makes it all the more shocking is that communities in Europe and outside Europe are entirely excluded from the decisions about which infrastructure and energy model should work for them. ”

Contacts

Kuba Gogolewski, CEE Bankwatch Network
Tel.: +32485358317

Elena Gerebizza, Re:Common
Tel.: +393406705319

Emma Hughes, Platform
Tel.: +447801140192

Notes for editors

[1] The EC Communication on a European Energy Security Strategy from 28.5.2014 will be on the agenda. The document is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/doc/20140528_energy_security_communication.pdf

[2] The analysis is available at:
https://bankwatch.org/sites/default/files/study-PCI-gas-12Jun2014.pdf

This press release is issued by the following NGOs:
CEE Bankwatch Network www.bankwatch.org
Platform http://platformlondon.org/
Re:Common http://www.recommon.org/
Urgewald http://urgewald.org/
Both ENDS http://www.bothends.org/
ODG: http://www.odg.cat/
Counter Balance http://www.counter-balance.org

First court case against coal power plant construction in Serbia


Belgrade — NGO CEKOR submitted a formal complaint [*] in front of the Serbian national administrative court against the government’s decision to approve an Environmental Impact Assessment study for the construction of a new unit at the Kostolac B coal power plant. The complaint, in which the NGO exposes failings in the EIA process, is the first of its kind to reach Serbian courts.

The Serbian Center for Ecology and Sustainable Development – CEKOR – decided to file this complaint after their inputs about serious flaws and inconsistencies in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) had not been addressed in the final report which was approved by the government early this year [1].

During the public consultation process, which is designed so that the Ministry of Energy and Environmental Protection should include in the study the comments and suggestions received from the public, CEKOR pointed out that the EIA lacks essential aspects such as: a cost-benefit analysis, environmental and health impacts data, project alternatives scenarios, and a review of cumulative impacts.

Furthermore, the EIA report does not contain an analysis of the cross border impact of the 350 MW planned plant on Romania, and Romania has not been notified of the Serbian government’s intention to build the plant, breaching the Espoo convention on environmental impact assessment in a transboundary context. [2] The planned construction of this third unit at Kostolac is expected to add to the already heavy significant transboundary impacts which include air pollution, contamination of drinking water supplies from coal ash waste and sludge deposits and heavy usage of water resources from the Danube river, only 5 km away.

“For too long we have been building industrial facilities and changing the landscape without adequate understanding of what we are doing, and the results are visible all around us today in the form of increasing frequency and seriousness of storms and floods,” commented Zvezdan Kalmar from CEKOR. “With such phenomena only expected to get worse as the climate changes it’s time to take environmental impact assessments more seriously and stop building large centralised energy facilities in vulnerable locations.”

All legal aspects aside, further development of the coal sector in a country whose electricity already relies 65-70% on lignite burning will do nothing but block the country’s progress on renewables and energy efficiency. Earlier this year, the European Parliament’s resolution on the country’s progress report noted that Serbia is far behind other candidate countries and the question is whether its target of 27 percent for renewable energy is going to be met by 2020. [3]

For more information, contact:

Zvezdan Kalmar
Serbian campaigner, CEKOR / CEE Bankwatch Network
zvezdan@bankwatch.org

Notes for the editors:

* The complaint can be made available upon request (in Serbian).

1. Details about the approved EIA:
https://bankwatch.org/documents/KostolacB3-EIA-Dec2013-ispravke-v2.pdf (10Mb)

2. A confirmation from the Romanian government that Romania has not been notified of the Kostolac expansion plans can be made available upon request.

3. Read the EP resolution here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=MOTION&reference=B7-2014-0006&language=EN

Who is Jan Kulczyk, the man behind Serinus Energy?

In the summer of last year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a 60 million euro loan to Serinus Energy for financing the development of four oil and gas fields in Tunisia (Sabria, Chouech Essaida, Ech Chouechand Sanrahr) between 2013 and 2017.

Among the motivations for this loan, the EBRD quotes „supporting further development of a small private independent company in Tunisia, where the state-owned enterprise still dominates the production of hydrocarbons”. This small private independent company is Serinus Energy, „an entity resulting from the re-organisation of Kulczyk Oil Ventures Inc (“KOV”) following the completion of its acquisition of Winstar Resources Limited (“Winstar”), a Canadian company that owns the assets in Tunisia to be financed by the project”.

More information about the EBRD financed project is available on the EBRD page: http://www.ebrd.com/english/pages/project/psd/2013/44744.shtml

The claim that Serinus Energy is a small independent company which needs public support is highly questionable. Serinus Energy was formerly named Kulczyk Oil Ventures, an oil and gas transnational.

SEE THE STRUCTURE OF SERINUS ENERGY AND ITS LINKS TO THE EBRD:

https://bankwatch.org/bwmail/59/former-ebrd-president-implicated-banks-controversial-fossil-fuel-loan-tunisia

Jan Kulczyk is one of Poland’s richest people, with companies active in almost every conceivable sector – from real estate through brewing to infrastructure (highway construction) and natural resources – and spanning all six continents. Objectively, it is a hard sell to maintain that a Kulczyk company is not able to obtain financing from private sources.

With an estimated net worth of USD 3.9 billion, Kulczyk is ranked 402 on the World’s Billionaire list by Forbes. Kulczyk Investments – the parent company of Serinus Energy – is heavily involved in shale gas exploration and production both through San Leon Energy, which holds 83 concessions for both natural and unconventional gas exploration in Poland, Albania, Morocco, Spain, Ireland, France, Italy, Romania and Germany, and through Serinus Energy itself. In fact the first EBRD loan to Serinus Energy (at that time still Kulczyk Oil Ventures) is believed to have allowed it to become the first company from central and eastern Europe to have carried out hydraulic fracturing.

Serinus Energy is expected to attempt drilling for shale gas in Tunisia.

Billionaire Jan Kulczyk is the promoter of many energy projects around the world, many with controversial environmental impact.

In his native Poland, Kulczyk is financing among others the Elektrownia Północ coal power plant, also known as the North Power Plant in Pomerania, Poland, planned to become Europe’s largest coal plant. If built, the EP plant would emit around 10 mln tons of CO2 annually.

Last Friday, Polish activists delivered to Kulczyk a petition in which over 8,000 European citizens are demanding an end to this polluting coal plant.

Diana Maciaga of the EP campaign said:

“Thousands of people are indignant at the discrepancy between Dr Kulczyk’s words and deeds. We are here today to demonstrate that the double dealings of Kulczyk Investments won’t go unnoticed. We appeal to Dr Kulczyk to walk the talk and invest in clean energy solutions.”

Back in Tunisia, local NGOs have already noted that communities living next to drilling platforms have not been consulted as of the end of this April, nine months after the approval of the loans for Serinus Energy by the EBRD’s board of directors.

Worryingly, the EBRD projects covering the financing for Serinus Energy has been deemed a „category B” project by the EBRD, which means that investors expect limited environmental impact of this project and hence limited environmental impact assessment procedures will be conducted before starting works.

But, according to local Tunisian groups, “the exploitation of shale gas requires massive amounts of water and chemicals and could have disastrous consequences in a country that faces serious water scarcity such as Tunisia,” and “the type of shale identified in the Serinus Energy concessions in Tunisia is ‘hot shale’ which means that the rock is radioactive. Radioactive particles mix into the fracking fluid and drilling mud, and are brought to the surface.”

Kuba Gogolewski, CEE Bankwatch Network:

„That the Serinus Energy project in Tunisia financed by the EBRD is a small project with limited environmental impact is a lie. The people of Tunisia should not be fooled by this rhetoric but instead should look to countries like Poland and Ukraine where Kulczyk is planning other disastruous energy investments and where local communities are outraged. Oil and gas drilling is a massive deal which should happen with scrutiny and control by the Tunisians, starting from the communities closest to the planned exploitation sites.”

For more information, contact:

Diana Maciaga
Association Workshop for All Beings
tel.: 501 285 417
e-mail: diana@pracownia.org.pl

Kuba Gogolewski
North Africa Coordinator for Bankwatch
kuba.gogolewski@bankwatch.org
Tel.: +32 2 893 08 62